Phil,
If the unit was fine before it was run lowish, a quick look thru the inspection plate will tell if it's worth spending any time on.
Youre looking for a good even pattern, with no material loss.
If there's any chips or chunks out of the gear teeth ...
... give it the
navy "floatation" test (find the nearest body of water, toss it in, and if it floats, you can use it! )
Now, look at the teeth more closely.
The two gears meshing will wear a series of witness marks/polished
smooth areas into the gearset teeth, and they tell the tale of how well the gearset was enjoying it's life, and how much life is left.
You're looking for a smooth contact pattern that does not run off the edge of the tooth. It should be
mostly centered, but most of all it should be
smooth, without any noticeable "denting" (areas worn away)
(click on pic to enlarge)
Notice the area in the circle that has a "smeared" appearance, (and also notice the wear pattern has some depth to it.)
This wear pattern forms when the bearing preload is lost and the shafts can "tip" a schoshe under load, concentrating the loading on a smaller area. (or you;re making a sh*t ton of power /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif ). ( It can also form if your fluid isn't up to the task, but there will be other signs of that in other areas. )
At any rate, I don;t like running gearsets with this kind of pattern, as they almost invariably come back and bite me in the ass.
Check the splines on the coupler, (post a pic if you can)
If it passes both those quick checks, it's worth spending some more time on.
Starting with it clean on the outside will help considerably when you want to put it together clean on the inside!
cap the end and wrap it with tape.
Remove the breather and plug the hole with a #3x plastic cap. (or whatever you have that fits the hole in the case tightly)
Hose that nasty bitch down with engine degreaser (... don't kno if Curtis is a connoisseur of degreasers, maybe he can chime in /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif ) and wash the thing thoroughly. Often a small plastic dishbrush will help working the cleaner into the shmeg, and it'll come cleaner faster and more better if you work the really grungy spots.
Thoroughly clean the coupler splines. A "bottle" brush from the dollar store will really make this job easier!
When you;re done washing it, pull the tape and cap off the back end and stand it up in a drain pan to let any water they may gotten in to drain out.
I usually hose the coupler splines with wd-40 at this point, and then blow the thing dry with compressed air. (wear safety gasses!)
Quoting Barnes:
Are used good condition transfer cases hard to come by in New Zealand? Seems like a lot of work if you could just buy a replacement one for cheap.
... Having an "issue" with a t-case can turn
deadly serious in an instant ...
Do you want to trust your ass to a case you know nothing about?
"Good" condition used t-cases
are already hard to find, and most that you will find will be high mileage pieces of sh*t
... with worn out splines in the coupler ...
In his home country, they never "officially" got the vr-4. All the vr-4's running sround there were imported
after the fact, and that makes finding replacement parts hit and miss.
I've just about given up on finding cheap and/or even "good" cores, and now I'm just resigned to the fact that they will need some love before they are worthy of being installed on my car, ( or the car of anyone I care about. )
... and that's here in the states where there's a
lot more cars, including the T/E/L chassis to choose from ...
At the very least, before I spend my hard earned sheckles on a pig in a poke, I'll pull the inspection plate and look at the gear contact pattern.
... And before I run it, I'll open it up and inspect the bearing races, and the tooth contact pattern more closely ...
Yeah, sounds like work, don;t it?
Guess I'm just used to relying on my sh*t to get me there and back, and I know what it takes to ensure it happens that way.
chance favors a prepared ride /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif